Tuesday, November 28, 2006
New blogger, New templates
well, I was just after getting my old blogger template teh way I wanted it, and now blogger.com seems to have gotten itself taken over by Google, so I have to go and change my layout, templates etc. Not too bad a job I guess, are a few nice bits in the new way of doping things - but now my header pic is out of whack! Was trying to edit the raw HTML but seeing as I never really learned XML or CSS before, is pretty much guesswork for me. Ah well, will try again later.
The iPod lives!
Well, I finally got my iPod working again. I was home the weekend with the battery replacement kit, and tried opening it up and replacing the battery. It didn't go as badly as I thought, altho it's stil a bit unnerving to hear so many 'snaps' and 'cracks' when you're levering the end caps off - will they go back on? I got the battery replaced anyway, got the thing back together with no bits left over (always good that) and followed the instructions to leave it charge for 24hrs.
24 hours later, I went to try to update my music. Nothing. Wouldn't turn on. The little 'battery charging' icon was on when it was plugged in, but as soon as I plugged it out, nada. Plugged it into the laptop and got nothing. First thought that went through my head was "aw crap". First the phone died, then the rolex strap broke, now the iPod is fubared. Didn't have time to play with it much after that as I was back on IT support for my mother. Shoved all teh bits into my bag, and brought it back up to dublin.
This morning I decided to have another go. Cracked open the thing again, and straight away noticed the problem - I'd plugged in the power connection the wrong way around! Switched it around and sure enough, was back working! Now all I have to do is wait for the fecker to charge fully and I'm back on the road again! :-)
So, one problem down, two to go......
24 hours later, I went to try to update my music. Nothing. Wouldn't turn on. The little 'battery charging' icon was on when it was plugged in, but as soon as I plugged it out, nada. Plugged it into the laptop and got nothing. First thought that went through my head was "aw crap". First the phone died, then the rolex strap broke, now the iPod is fubared. Didn't have time to play with it much after that as I was back on IT support for my mother. Shoved all teh bits into my bag, and brought it back up to dublin.
This morning I decided to have another go. Cracked open the thing again, and straight away noticed the problem - I'd plugged in the power connection the wrong way around! Switched it around and sure enough, was back working! Now all I have to do is wait for the fecker to charge fully and I'm back on the road again! :-)
So, one problem down, two to go......
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Away from home again.
Well, looks like I'm off travelling again. I'm just after booking 4 days in Brussels again, over to see my friend Sara there. This seems to be becoming an annual event - am flying the 14th and back on the 18th of december. Will probably be the first real test of my ski jacket!
I decided this time not to go with Ryanair like I usually do, despite them being the cheapest option. With Ryanair, I could have gotten the trip for €20 return including taxes (or €9 less than it costs me to go home to Waterford for the weekend), and with Aer Lingus it was €75 - €58 of which is tax! So I'd almost be paying as much after tax with Ryanair as before tax with Aer Lingus. Once you include though the "transfer fee" to and from the airport at €10 and 50min-1hr each way, the differnece gets to be a bit smaller - with Aer Lingus I'm flying into Brussels itself (Zaventem airport) not some dipshit little town in the south of the country (no offence intended to anyone from Charleroi who's reading, but....), and it's 20min and about €2 for the train in to Midi! Besides, the last time I flew Ryanair to Brussels I had a 2hr delay on the way out and a 4 1/2hr delay on the way back, so I think it's time to give someoen else a chance.
I've also gotten off my ass finally about the ski trip on February. I'm heading off to Kitzbuehl in Austria with some friends, the 24th feb to the 3rd March. Shgould be a good laugh, altho we still have to figure out such minor things as transport from teh airport to the ski resort, accommodation etc..... ;-)
I decided this time not to go with Ryanair like I usually do, despite them being the cheapest option. With Ryanair, I could have gotten the trip for €20 return including taxes (or €9 less than it costs me to go home to Waterford for the weekend), and with Aer Lingus it was €75 - €58 of which is tax! So I'd almost be paying as much after tax with Ryanair as before tax with Aer Lingus. Once you include though the "transfer fee" to and from the airport at €10 and 50min-1hr each way, the differnece gets to be a bit smaller - with Aer Lingus I'm flying into Brussels itself (Zaventem airport) not some dipshit little town in the south of the country (no offence intended to anyone from Charleroi who's reading, but....), and it's 20min and about €2 for the train in to Midi! Besides, the last time I flew Ryanair to Brussels I had a 2hr delay on the way out and a 4 1/2hr delay on the way back, so I think it's time to give someoen else a chance.
I've also gotten off my ass finally about the ski trip on February. I'm heading off to Kitzbuehl in Austria with some friends, the 24th feb to the 3rd March. Shgould be a good laugh, altho we still have to figure out such minor things as transport from teh airport to the ski resort, accommodation etc..... ;-)
Monday, November 13, 2006
things of a hardware nature
Well, I finally managed to get a spare battery for my iPod! After trying loads of shops, and each one telling me to tr somewhere else, and then being told the best solution was to send it to AppleCare to get done for €150, I finally spotted it in Maplin on the 3rd attempt (seems they'd just got them delivered in) for €32. So much for AppleCare! Now my only problem is that I left the bloody iPod in waterford last weekend so I cna't replace the batt yet! :-( Looking at the instructions it's not goign to be easy either - they use the word "prise" a bit too much in the booklet for my liking.......
And if only that were all my hardware problems sorted. The phone saga is still going on. I went into them on sat, 2 weeks after I last heard from them and 4 weeks afte rthey told me it'd take 2 weeks to fix. Last time I was told that seeing as I couldn't prve it was under warranty, I'd have to pay €90 to get it fixed and it'd take 2 weeks. So, I go back in expecting to pay out my €90 (or half what I paid for my phone) and get my phone back. Nope! Apparently Ericsson had lost the confirmation order to actually fix the damn thing and sent it back unfixed - a common problem with them apparently. So the guy asked me did I want to send it back and get it fixed again, which would take another week. I bit back my reply of "well, duh, what the f**k good is a broken phone" and said yeah. Think just to be on the safe side I might see who wants to get me a new mobile for Xmas.
Just to top things off, along a similar note, the strap on my fake rolex broke a few weeks back, and I need ot get it fixed. I thought I had some spare links for it but couldn't find them, so I brought the broken links and the watch into the shop to see oculd they do anything for me. Nope, will need a new strap. This of course will probably cost me more than the watch cost originally. Have one last chance, I got another guy a fake rolex of the same model too, will have to see if he has spare links still.....
And on teh last hard-ware related issue of the day, the gfx card on my laptop is acting up again. It seems that whatever they did in firefox 1.0.5/6 to fix the prob where firefox crashes ATI cards & OpenGL, it's back again in firefix 2.0. I upgraded a few days ago and now am lucky to go 5mins of using forefox without the fecking screen freezing or goign black. Sometimes I just get a screen flash and get told "hardware rendeing is fucked, we're gone back to software rendering" which is grand for me when I'm not laying games, but I don't want to be stuck like that for good
It deffo seems to be a firefox issue as well, as I'm using IE7 here for the last few hours and nary a crash have I seen. Thing is, after using firefox, IE7 sucks! It has tabs now which is handy, but you sort of get used to all them nifty little extrensions and stuff, and the font rendering on some of the pages I go to a lot is absolutely brutal (probably the page rather than the browser, but still looks sucky).
And if only that were all my hardware problems sorted. The phone saga is still going on. I went into them on sat, 2 weeks after I last heard from them and 4 weeks afte rthey told me it'd take 2 weeks to fix. Last time I was told that seeing as I couldn't prve it was under warranty, I'd have to pay €90 to get it fixed and it'd take 2 weeks. So, I go back in expecting to pay out my €90 (or half what I paid for my phone) and get my phone back. Nope! Apparently Ericsson had lost the confirmation order to actually fix the damn thing and sent it back unfixed - a common problem with them apparently. So the guy asked me did I want to send it back and get it fixed again, which would take another week. I bit back my reply of "well, duh, what the f**k good is a broken phone" and said yeah. Think just to be on the safe side I might see who wants to get me a new mobile for Xmas.
Just to top things off, along a similar note, the strap on my fake rolex broke a few weeks back, and I need ot get it fixed. I thought I had some spare links for it but couldn't find them, so I brought the broken links and the watch into the shop to see oculd they do anything for me. Nope, will need a new strap. This of course will probably cost me more than the watch cost originally. Have one last chance, I got another guy a fake rolex of the same model too, will have to see if he has spare links still.....
And on teh last hard-ware related issue of the day, the gfx card on my laptop is acting up again. It seems that whatever they did in firefox 1.0.5/6 to fix the prob where firefox crashes ATI cards & OpenGL, it's back again in firefix 2.0. I upgraded a few days ago and now am lucky to go 5mins of using forefox without the fecking screen freezing or goign black. Sometimes I just get a screen flash and get told "hardware rendeing is fucked, we're gone back to software rendering" which is grand for me when I'm not laying games, but I don't want to be stuck like that for good
It deffo seems to be a firefox issue as well, as I'm using IE7 here for the last few hours and nary a crash have I seen. Thing is, after using firefox, IE7 sucks! It has tabs now which is handy, but you sort of get used to all them nifty little extrensions and stuff, and the font rendering on some of the pages I go to a lot is absolutely brutal (probably the page rather than the browser, but still looks sucky).
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